Propagation: Plant propagation discussions-April 2019, 1 by oxdriftgardener

oxdriftgardener wrote:
As you know I have been propagating succulents for many years by stem cuttings twice a year. God says you don't grow tender succulents in the Arctic and my response is watch me. So in the fall I take stem cuttings to move inside for the winter and in the spring I behead any gangly stock and start fresh cuttings for the migration to the outdoors for the short summer.
In spring of 2017 I started dabbling with leaf cuttings as it is hard to increase your inventory of some varieties by stem cuttings. This is a lot slower process but I was having moderate success by simply laying the leaf cuttings on top of my homemade succulent soil mix. I would guess I was maybe having 30 to 40% success rate with this method.
As I started to spend a lot of time on Pinterest in the winter I was constantly seeing Pins showing leaf cuttings in vials of water. This just seemed wrong to me for the longest time but finally this spring curiosity killed the cat and I embarked on an experiment on March 11. See photo #1. I emailed my sister and her comment was why so many. I replied that the success rate with leaf cuttings is not very high. Well lo and behold I had 100% success. 29 of the babies in photo #2 taken this morning are the result of that experiment. The secret to being successful in vials of water is to let the cuttings lay out and callous over for a few days so they dont drown from too much water intake.
Leaf cuttings are not the way to go if you are in a hurry but if you have time the quality of the baby plant is superior as you get a high percentage of cluster heads. The triple headed dark Echeveria in photo #3 is one of my original leaf cuttings from 2017. If you are wondering why it looks like there are spots on the leaves I had just misted them before i took the photo. Its just water droplets.
There you have it. The moral of the story is think twice before you ask me what I've been doing unless you really want to know. LOL
Keith

This message was edited May 24, 2019 9:42 AM